Biography: Public Procurement

Christian F Schneider has been a partner with bpv Hügel Rechtsanwälte OG since 2004. His key areas of practice are public procurement law, public law, European law (in particular internal market law and state aid law), energy law and environmental law.

Christian graduated in law from Vienna University (1993 Mag iur 1993 and Dr iur 1996) and in business administration from the Vienna University of Economics and Business (Mag rer soc oec 1995, Dr rer soc oec 2001). Before joining bpv Hügel he had worked as assistant professor of constitutional and administrative law at Vienna University (1995 to 2000).

Christian regularly advises public authorities, utilities, infrastructure providers and contractors on the wide spectrum of issues that may arise in the context of public procurement, including tenders, review proceedings and litigation. Apart from standard tendering and review procedures he is also consulting in special cases with strong linkages with other fields of law, such as internal market law and state aid law. Prominent cases in which Christian acted as counsel were, inter alia, the exemption of the generation of electricity in Austria from the application of public procurement law pursuant to article 30 of the Utilities Directive 2004/17/EC, a tender for a service concession for broadband in the Austrian state of Carinthia and the first exemption of an AC merchant line from the regulatory regime pursuant to article 7 of EC Regulation 1228/2003.

Christian is a frequent speaker at congresses and seminars and lecturer in regulatory law at Vienna University. He is author of numerous articles in his special fields of work. Pertaining public procurement law he published, inter alia, an article on the applicability of public procurement rules on financial services.